Censorship in Singapore
Censorship in Singapore mainly targets political, racial and religious issues, as defined by out-of-bounds markers. Implementation The Media Development Authority (MDA) approves publications, issues arts entertainment licences and enforces the Free-to-air (FTA) TV Programme Code, Subscription TV Programme Code, TV Advertising Code, Radio Programme Code and Radio Advertising Code through financial penalties. The MDA's decisions may be appealed to the Broadcast, Publications and Arts Appeal Committee (BPAA) and the Films Appeal Committee (FAC). The Censorship Review Committee (CRC) meets every ten years to "review and update censorship objectives and principles to meet the long-term interests of our society". The CRC was most recently reconvened in 2009 and made some 80 recommendations the following year, most of which were accepted. Justification The Government of Singapore argues that censorship of political, racial and religious issues to a certain extent is necessary to avoid upsetting the balance of Singapore's delicate multi-racial society. Films and videos Performing arts The scripts of all plays to be performed in Singapore must be vetted in advance by the Media Development Authority (MDA), which has the right to ban any it views as "contrary to the public interest". Appeals against MDA's decisions can be made to the Broadcast, Publications and Arts Appeal Committee (BPAA). In 1994, performance artist Josef Ng protested the arrest and caning of 12 homosexual men by caning slabs of tofu, then turning his back to the audience and snipping off some pubic hair. He was charged with committing an obscene act and banned from performing in public, and his theatre group's grants were cancelled. In 2005, the MDA withheld the licence for the play Human Lefts unless some scenes were edited and all references to the death penalty removed. The play was originally written about the hanging of Shanmugam Murugesu and was to have been staged one day after the controversial execution of Australian national Nguyen Tuong Van. In August 2006, a play Smegma was banned by Media Development Authority which said that: "the play portrays Muslims in a negative light." In May 2010, the National Arts Council has cut the annual grant given to local theatre company Wild Rice. It will get $170,000 this year, down from $190,000 the year before. It is the lowest annual grant that the company has received from the council. Artistic director Ivan Heng says the council told him funding was cut because its productions promoted alternative lifestyles, were critical of government policies and satirised political leaders. In March 2011, NAC increased to $1.92 million, a 25% hike, the amount to be given to 16 arts companies, including Wild Rice, under its one-year Major Grant scheme.http://www.nac.gov.sg/new/new02a.asp?id=461&y=2011 Print media Local press With the sole exception of MediaCorp's daily freesheet ''Today, all daily newspapers including the flagship Straits Times are printed by Singapore Press Holdings, whose management shareholders are appointed by the government in accordance with the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974. While current shareholding structure does not imply direct governmental control on media content , their active presence promotes self-censorship amongst journalists. In 2008, Reporters without Borders ranked Singapore as 144th out of 173 surveyed countries in terms of freedom of the press. The Singapore Government said it is not ashamed of its low rank for press freedom because it has achieved top ratings for economic freedom and prosperity. Instead of subscribing to the Western press model, it believes that a non-adversarial press can report accurately and objectively. A recent Gallup poll found that 69% of Singaporeans trusted their media. On 30 June 2006, blogger mrbrown wrote an article, titled "TODAY: S'poreans are fed, up with progress!", for his weekly opinion column in Today newspaper concerning the rising income gap and costs of living in Singapore. Three days later, on 3 July, an official from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts published a response letter on the same newspaper calling mrbrown a "partisan player" whose views "distort the truth". On 6 July, the newspaper suspended his column.Daily newspaper Today sacks blogger "mr brown" after government criticism, Reporters Without Borders, 6 July 2006 Fellow blogger Mr Miyagi subsequently resigned from his column for Today. This was followed by Today newspaper chief executive and editor-in-chief Mano Sabnani's resignation in November 2006. The action fuelled anger over the Internet due to the perceived heavy-handedness action taken by the government over criticisms."Mixing welfare and elitism in Singapore", Alex Au, Asia Times, November 23, 2006 Foreign publications The MDA requires importers to "ensure that the publications/ audio materials brought in for distribution do not feature content which could be considered objectionable on moral, racial or religious grounds, or deemed detrimental to Singapore’s national interests". According to the MDA, more than 2 million publications and 300,000 audio materials are imported into Singapore each year under the Registered Importers Scheme. Foreign publications that carry articles the government considers slanderous, including The Economist and the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), have been subjected to defamation suits and/or had their circulations "gazetted" (restricted). The sale of Malaysian newspapers in Singapore is prohibited;Newspaper and Printing Presses Act, Sec. 22. "Permit required for sale and distribution in Singapore of newspapers printed or published in Malaysia" 22. —(1) No newspaper printed in Malaysia shall be published, sold, offered for sale or distributed in Singapore unless the proprietor of the newspaper or his agent has previously obtained and there is in force a permit granted by the Minister authorising the publication, sale or distribution of the newspaper in Singapore, which permit the Minister may in his discretion grant, refuse or revoke, or grant subject to conditions to be endorsed thereon. a similar ban on the sale of newspapers from Singapore applies in Malaysia. In August 2006, the government announced a tightening of rules on foreign publications previously exempt from the media code. Newsweek, Time, the Financial Times, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the International Herald Tribune will be required to appoint a publisher's representative in Singapore who could be sued, and to pay a security deposit of S$200,000. The move comes after FEER published an interview with Singaporean opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, who claimed that leading members of the Singaporean government had "skeletons in their closets". On 28 September 2006, FEER was banned for failing to comply with conditions imposed under the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act. Pornography is strictly regulated but limited to certain number of people who have privacy, such as Poh Jing Xiang's house; this encompasses magazines such as Playboy or Penthouse. However, magazines which are deemed to contain "mature content" such as Cosmopolitan Magazine are free to be distributed at all stores with a "Unsuitable for the young" label on its cover. In December 2008, a Singaporean couple was charged with sedition for distributing the Chick tracts The Little Bride and Who Is Allah?, said to "to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims in Singapore", an offense punishable by death. Television The state-owned MediaCorp comprises all free-to-air terrestrial local TV channels licensed to broadcast in Singapore, as well as 13 radio stations. As of September 2010, Singapore relaxed the Subscription Television Programme Code guidelines allowing Pay TV operators to screen NC16, M18 and R21-rated programmes containing explicit content and mature subject matter such as homosexuality. R21-rated content is still restricted to only Video-on-Demand (VOD) services. However, the English language Pay-TV channels currently available for broadcast in Singapore comprises only Asian regional channels such as Fox Channel Asia, Star World and WarnerTV, which are outside the editorial control of the Media Development Authority (MDA) as they operate on a regional scale and the same standard of censorship is carried out across the entire region because these channels have to conform with laws from the more conservative areas in Asia, meaning most territories in Asia watch the same censored version. At the moment, only Singapore-owned Video-On-Demand services offer English language programmes that can be regulated by the MDA and therefore, passed uncut under content ratings such as NC16, M18 and R21. The popular HBO series Sex and the City was pulled from broadcast originally in the late 90s when the series debuted but the ban was later lifted after an earlier relaxation of guidelines in the Subscription Television Programme Code in 2004. Private ownership of satellite dishes can be used like Apple TV, Android TV and Unblock Tech, though international TV news broadcasts (such as CNN, BBC, Fox News Channel, RT, etc.) are available on services such as Starhub TV and SingTel IPTV Singtel TV. The Media Development Authority, through its Programme Advisory Committees for each of the four official languages,http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/mediani.aspx?sid=593 constantly monitors and provides feedback on broadcast content. Permissible content on Singaporean TV is minutely regulated by the MDA's Free-to-Air Television Programme Code.http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.file/mobj/mobj.612.fta_tv_prog_code.pdf Part 5 of the Code states that TV programs "should not in any way promote, justify or glamorise" homosexuality in any form. MediaCorp has been fined repeatedly for violations of this, most recently in April 2008 for showing an episode of Home and Design that depicted a gay couple. Part 7 of the Code states that "Gratuitous and graphic portrayals of violence, such as cutting up body parts and spurting of blood, should be avoided.", and that programs "should not glamorise or in any way promote persons ... who engage in any criminal activity". Local productions thus typically avoid depicting the local police or military personal as victims of violence, resulting in predictable storylines considered "ethically correct". The police, for example, are increasingly shown to rarely succumb to graphic violence or other unfortunate events, and even if they do, are typically shown to prevail ultimately, as depicted in police dramas Triple Nine and Heartlanders. Part 12.3 of the Code states that use of the local English-based creole Singlish "should not be encouraged and can only be permitted in interviews, where the interviewee speaks only Singlish." The popular Singlish sitcom Phua Chu Kang was singled out in a National Day rally speech. The Programmes Advisory Committee for English TV and Radio Programmes also singled out the use of Singlish in local sitcoms in its 2005 annual report, saying they "contain excessive Singlish" and "this should be avoided as it could give the wrong impression, especially among the young, that Singlish is the standard of spoken English in Singapore" http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/thenewsdesk.aspx?sid=660 Part 12.4 of the Code states that "All Chinese programmes, except operas or other programmes specifically approved by the Authority, must be in Mandarin." The Cantonese used by popular TV serials from Hong Kong had to be dubbed into Mandarin, while local television series or programmes may not use dialects. Similarly, local newspapers were not allowed to carry listings for Malaysia's TV3, which showed programmes in Cantonese. However, Hong Kong's TVB, broadcasting in Cantonese, is now available on cable. The latest annual report by the Advisory Committee for Chinese Programmes, for instance, chastised dramas such as Beyond the aXis of Truth 2 (police thriller on the supernatural) and Wing of Desire (contemporary family-feud drama) for graphic violence, while giving credit to A Promise For Tomorrow, A New Life, A Child's Hope, and so on, for the "positive messages" transmitted.http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.file/mobj/mobj.878.ACCESS_Annual_Report(FY2004-2006).pdf Hence, locally-produced dramas in recent decades are overwhelmingly family-based, with action-thrillers generally avoided. As of September 2010, Singapore relaxed television broadcast guidelines allowing Pay TV operators to screen NC16, M18 and R21 films containing explicit content on Video-on-Demand (VOD) services. Internet Internet services provided by the three major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are subject to regulation by the Media Development Authority (MDA), which blocks 100 "symbolic" websites such as Playboy and YouPorn. Since 8 October 2014, online gambling has been regulated in Singapore. Government agencies have been known to use or threaten to use litigation against bloggers and other Internet content providers. The first instance of such activity was against Sintercom in July 2001 when the founder, Dr Tan Chong Kee was asked to register the website under the nascent Singapore Broadcast Authority Act (now Media Development Authority). Dr Tan chose to shut down Sintercom due to concerns over the ambiguity of the Act. In April 2005, a blogger, Chen Jiahao, then a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was made to apologise and shut down his blog containing criticisms on government agency A*STAR, after its chairman Philip Yeo threatened to sue for defamation. In September 2005, 3 people were arrested and charged under the Sedition Act for posting racist comments on the Internet. Two were sentenced to imprisonment."Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2005", The United States Department of State. Retrieved 20 March 2006. Later, the Teachers' Union announced that it is offering legal assistance to teachers who want to take legal action against students who defame them on their blogs, after five students from Saint Andrew's Junior College were suspended for three days for allegedly "flaming" two teachers and a vice-principal on their blogs."Schools act against students for 'flaming' teachers on blogs", The Straits Times, page 1, 27 September 2005, by Sandra Davie and Liaw Wy-Cin. In the last few years, the government has taken a much tougher stand on Internet-related matters, including censorship. Proposed amendments to the Penal Code intend to hold Internet users liable for "causing public mischief", and give the authorities broader powers in curtailing freedom of speech."Mixing welfare and elitism in Singapore", Alex Au, Asia Times Online, 23 November 2006 In September 2008, US citizen Gopalan Nair was sentenced to 3 months imprisonment for insulting a public servant after he accused a Singapore judge of "prostituting herself" in his blog. AFP Report Starting 1 June 2013 the Media Development Authority requires sites "that report regularly on issues relating to Singapore and have significant reach" among website visitors in Singapore to apply for individual licenses, which will be subject to annual renewal. These websites must then post a "performance bond" of 50,000 Singapore dollars and remove any objectionable content within 24 hours of receiving a government order.The Wallstreet Journal Europe edition, Media & Marketing on 29 May 2013 On 14 June 2013 the Asia Internet Coalition voiced their concerns.'Public letter dated June 14th, 2013 from the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) to Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore' on the website of the AIC (PDF) See also * Public demonstrations in Singapore * Human rights in Singapore * OB marker References Others # Terry Johal, "Controlling the Internet: The use of legislation and its effectiveness in Singapore (pdf file)", Proceedings, 15th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Canberra, 2004. # Gary Rodan, "The Internet and Political Control in Singapore (pdf file)" Political Science Quarterly 113 (Spring 1998) External links * Media Development Authority * Censorship in Singapore - IFEX * Undated Centre Street Broadcast in which Martyn See and others discuss the film Singapore Rebel * The 3 tiers of censorship in Singapore, a review of censorship laws and practices. (5 November 2009) Singapore Category:Freedom of expression in Singapore Category:Singaporean culture